Prime Minister Scott Morrison has claimed victory in a stunning political “miracle” that has devastated the Labor Party, forced Bill Shorten to step down as its leader and reshaped Australian politics.

Shorten had been favoured in exit polls and made significant gains in some seats in New South Wales and Victoria, while independent candidate Zali Steggall defeated former prime minister Tony Abbott in Warringah.

But his bid to become Australia’s 31st Prime Minister – through a platform of tax, wages and climate policy reform – was in deep trouble with his party suffering damaging defeats in key electorates the party needed to claim power.

Mr Shorten announced he would stand down as Labor leader while staying in Parliament, adding the federal election campaign had been “toxic at times” but that Labor had fought for ambitious change.

The election result was yet to be finalised at the end of election night, with several seats in doubt, but the Coalition defied the opinion polls to hold its ground and win seats from Labor.

With almost three quarters of the vote counted, the Coalition had 74 of the 151 seats in the House of Representatives and was within sight of forming government in its own right or with support in a hung Parliament.

Any result would have been dramatic. When was the last time an Australian Prime Minister won an election?

But:

However, the result shows the nation is divided along geographic and ideological lines with Mr Abbott declaring a political “realignment” with Labor making gains in progressive wealthy seats and the Coalition doing better in working class areas.

Corky

Duker

Boards ? You mean like the ANZ who have been punished by Reserve Bank for ignoring the rules, despite ‘The Board’ certifying they were. So it wasnt something Key and his board members werent told about. Key is Chairman of ANZ in NZ.
Its looking like hes got the Jenny Shipley syndrome

Corky

Maybe I should have said business interests. But talking of the ANZ, that position just pays for his fun in Hawaii. I don’t think he worries about ANZ’s small print. He just signs off on the audits. The point is..he has a lot of money, and folk like you and Blazer don’t. That’s the hard realities of life my friend.

Kitty Catkin

Jetsetters are rich people who fly around for pleasure, not those who do it for a reason such as going to attend a board meeting. The expression came about in the 60s, I think, when jets were much more of a novelty and status symbol.

Pink David

Given the ALP were promoting this as an election to save the earth, and voting for anyone else would be a vote for planetary doom, I think the scare tactics lost.

“Despite enduring its hottest year on record and a series of environmental calamities that have brought the climate emergency into sharp relief, Australia has voted for the centre-right Liberal party and its coalition partner, and against taking forceful action on the climate crisis.”

David

True, we had the opposite here where National had created a really strongly performing economy so people felt safe enough to give Labour a go. We had growth of 4% and English in charge yet they were still turfed out.

Duker

David

Again no point of interest to your comments, the stalking is a bit odd though. Let me try again, when the economy is doing well and has been for quite a while voters feel safe enough to take a punt and when things are looking a bit dicey they are more likely to stick with the status quo as long as they are reasonable stewards of the economy.

Alan Wilkinson

david in aus

Labor’s tax policies hurt them. Retirees voted against them in record numbers. My parents who had voted Labor in the past were adamantly against them and wouldn’t trust them again.

Early polls reflected the lack of popularity of the Liberal government, I would agree. But when there is an Election, the actual policies come into focus. I suspect the plunging property market had an affect when your wealth disappears, are you going to vote for a party that wants that to continue?

david in aus

I also wonder whether cultural war factors came in to play. Israel Folau’s case was in the news and was the most commented news article. It galvanized those supporting Religious Freedom and hurt the Left and the Cross-bench.

Kitty Catkin

He still doesn’t seem to get it that telling people that Hell awaits them was what was objected to, not his expressing his religious views per se. If he had been openly Christian as others are, nobody would mind at all. It’s high-handedly taking it on himself to tell people that they were going to Hell when they died that got people’s backs up. Especially as he was doing it in his role as whatever the team is player and not as an individual.

We all knew that Michael Jones wouldn’t play on Sundays; it was a non-issue as it was obviously his own choice and he didn’t condemn those who did as far as I remember.

Duker

Did you see the liberals spending policies – Its been called the biggest give away since Whitlam. There was no project too small or too large for promise of federal money. Sports clubs, schools retired centres were showered with cash.
They used the power of being in government to spread it all around , now they dont have a majority of seats to pay for it.

david in aus

david in aus

Remember, when there are no adjustments of tax thresholds for inflation, they are effectively annual tax increases. The Liberals promised tax relief after years of tax increases. Labor wanted more and more taxes.

Duker

David

Again, its getting creepy. In betting markets they use system called “odds” and mostly these vary between outcomes so when the favorite doesnt win at low odds but the underdog wins at greater odds the bookies can take a hit.

Alan Wilkinson

ANALYSIS – Scott Morrison has earned a permanent place as a Liberal Party legend by returning to government in what was meant to be an unwinnable election for the Coalition, writes ABC's Patricia Karvelas.https://t.co/M3t3skdwsk

Duker

The Liberals bought their win
‘Phased in tax cuts. The Coalition’s signature election policy. It will provide tax breaks for more than 10 million Australians and simplify the system by removing the 37 per cent tax bracket entirely. The measures will cost Treasury coffers $158 billion over 10 years, but don’t hold your breath for them all.’

Dont forget the actual in your hand refunds THIS YEAR
“The most immediate benefit of the Coalition’s tax policy will come from July 1 this year. Australians earning less than $37,000 will get a gift of up to $255 with their tax returns. If you’re earning between $48,000 and $90,000, you will get $1080.

Even splurge for business in depreciation ‘instant writeoffs- which cuts taxable income.
‘Instant asset write-off. As part of the 2019 budget, businesses turning more than $50 million can write-off assets against their taxable income. Previously, businesses turning over more than $10 million were excluded from the scheme.

Climate ? Same as labour
‘The Coalition has committed Australia to reduce its emissions by 26 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030, in line with the Paris targets.’

Schools
‘Schools. The Coalition has promised a $4.6 billion package for Catholic and Independent schools, which comes on top of $23.5 billion over 10 years for all schools

Childcare , some free hours
‘ The budget pledged $453 million to fund four-year-old kindergarten for another year and ensure children have access to 15 hours a week of preschool in the year before school

“Inland rail. The Coalition has promised $9.3 billion for a 1700 kilometre freight line from Melbourne to Brisbane,
Roads – plenty of billions for that – Road Building is Vote Building

Pink David

My god, giving people what they want! I can’t believe politics has sunk so low. Back in the day, you just lied to them about this stuff, you are not meant to deliver…..100,000 houses? Sure! No problem, just fill in the form here…

Pink David

Dennis Horne

Morrison is on record saying Australia will meet the Paris emissions commitment in a canter — without actually doing anything! Another fundamental Christian who believes in miracles — actually he said as much.

Next he’ll be donating taxpayers’ money to the Adani Indian family to open the Carmichael coal mine that no bank will touch.

Tom Hunter

Tom Hunter

Duker

Those were ‘ 2 party party preferred’ ( when they assume preferences go a certain way) when the raw numbers were different…. Nationwide polling when a government is formed from ‘seats’ has been shown to be a fail- similar to US were national polls with small lead to Clinton but the election is one by states and votes in Electoral College.

Tom Hunter

Sure. Hindsight. But when making predictions you’d think those pollsters would have tried to develop something more sophisticated to deal with preference voting OR simply not made predictions without putting in these caveats.

Won’t make any difference: I predict the Aussie pollsters and their media luvvies will be just as stupid next time around, except their might then be a landslide that covers up their mistakes.

Duker

Margin of error is usually a few % , election itself was within that range. Plus science of polling says you will get something like one out of every 10 polls ‘simply wrong’

if anything having the polls against meant the Liberals threw money at the voters and it worked!
They have borrowed up big in the last 6 years, – debt has risen from $290 bill to $585 bill , without a GFC to blame for that Increase in debt in 6 years under Coalition by $300 bill reaching $80 bill in 2016-17

” tax revenue increased from $337.7 billion to $427.2 billion in 2018, an increase of 26.7 per cent.”
Yes population has increased but tax raised per capita has increased

yet Morrison said!
Coalition will “maintain the budget surpluses and pay down debt”

Duker

An Australian website looks at the pre election polls and was worried by what he didnt find- a normal distribution ‘spread’
The suggestion was that the Pollsters were ‘herding’ where the adjustments were done to match the ‘herd’ of other polls

Alan Wilkinson

Duker

Australian preferential voting system means you have to manipulate the numbers to get the strange bird called “two party preferred’ for the whole country. And of course a nationwide number doesnt count when you can still win seats by close margins

It seems that Morrison like Turnbull before him had ditched the ‘Liberal’ brand and ran on their own personal brand. The result however is still unstable as we would see it-

Maggy Wassilieff

Duker

Just checking the Aussie papers this morning- and apart from the results a complete lack of stories.
My guess a lot of their journalist pre wrote their stories ( more common than you think) with only a few changes for the actual results.
Of course such stories cant be published now , so back to ‘whatever’

harryk

Where Labor could promote indigenous woemn over geriatric white men, they don’t, the Coalition does. In the NT Labor’s Snowden has been in Parliament for 30 years blocking the way for young indigenous locals to have a go. Young, local born Indigenous woman Jacinta P has cut his margin by more than half and has set herself up for a win next time. The big economic issue is fracking. Labor suppports it despite strong green left opposition. If they backtrack they’ll lose, just like Shorten.

Dennis Horne

The 1C refers to the mean global surface. Two points. 1. The mean global land surface is already 1.5C higher and increase is some areas 6C. 2. 93% of the heat due to human activity is going into the oceans.

You may think this does not affect people but the experts do. To all intents and purposes all of them.

Griff.

Feel free to give us the passage that says the UK has warmed by 1.7C due to the heat island effect from your linked paper.
Opps that is right it is in reference only to London and only to T min.

Research by the University of Sheffield suggests that “less than 6% of the UK is urban”, using data from 2012.

5.3% of the UK land surface is ‘discontinuous urban fabric’, according to the research—these include areas like suburbs around cities, rural towns and built up areas with lots of gardens, parks and planted areas. Around 0.1% was ‘continuous urban fabric’—areas with buildings and roads covering more than 80% of land surface.

Maggy Wassilieff

Griff.

Hello Maggy
I am not interested in your semantic games .
That is also bullshit .

Seen what’s been causing the warming in the UK.?

You tried to imply that 1.7C of the warming in the UK is due to the heat island effect.
It is unsupportable even slightly from your linked source as 1.7C is only for T min and only for London.
The urban land area your paper refers to makes up less than 6% of the total area of the UK.
Simple six year old math tells you 6% is not equal to 100%.
The most you could possible infer at an extreme stretch is 0.1 C warming of T min for the UK from the heat island effect .
[Deleted – argue points of difference without making speculative accusations.]

Alan Wilkinson

Griff.

I guess they are used to it and are wondering what the fuss about another degree is.

Because increasing the mean has a far greater effect on the extremes
In the example above a one in forty year event becomes one in six
That is a once a life time extreme happens every six years.

The distribution shift of real world temperatures .

Out side of human experience.
As CO2 levels are now higher than in the past three million years in the near future we will see meteorological events that have not been possible since Homo sapiens left the trees in Africa.
Temperature is also related to moisture levels both drought and rainfall extremes
We can also say we will see drought and rainfall extremes not seen in the same time span

harryk

Imagine a Union leader, a Labor leader, who puts urban climate change votes ahead of mining jobs for workers in Queensland. And a failed, recyled ex immigration Minister, who now promises to destroy the fishing industry with Marine Parks, again for urban green votes. There’s seats gone in Tasmania too. Simple really. But this is what you get from silvertail politicians who claim to represent ‘working class’ values but have never worked up a sweat in the lives. The ALP is becoming a Green Left party and deserting it’s base.